John Harbaugh’s Locker Room Crackdown 2025: When NFL Coaches Try the New High School Playbook
Look, we’ve all seen this movie before. Team starts slow, fans get restless, and suddenly the coach pulls out the oldest trick in the book—taking away the toys. Welcome to Baltimore, where John Harbaugh apparently thinks treating grown men like teenagers might turn around a 1-5 dumpster fire of a season.
The Great Locker Room Purge of 2025
According to reports from the Baltimore Sun, Harbaugh went full Marie Kondo on the locker room after a Week 4 loss to Kansas City. Out went the basketball hoop. Goodbye, ping pong table where rookies battled it out after practice. See ya later, cornhole boards. And yes, even the video game consoles got the boot—those intense Super Smash Bros. tournaments that “regularly drew small crowds of teammates late in the day” are now just a memory.
The trigger? Punter Jordan Stout posted an Instagram story of Jackson playing video games with the caption “Hard at work.” Because nothing says “we need to refocus” quite like getting called out by your punter on social media, right?
A Brief History of Coaches Taking Away Fun (Spoiler: It Doesn’t Work)
Remember 2013, when Ryan Clark and the Steelers veterans banned young players from ping pong? Mike Tomlin eventually just removed the table entirely. Pittsburgh went 8-8, missed the playoffs, and has won exactly three playoff games in the dozen years since. Remind me why Mike Tomlin still has a job again?
Tom Coughlin pulled this move twice—with the Giants in 2004 and the Jaguars in 2017. New York stumbled to another 6-10 season, and Jacksonville had one decent year before reverting to being, well, Jacksonville.
The Dolphins made headlines in 2022 when Mike McDaniel was proud of players removing their ping pong table. Plot twist: Tyreek Hill had just ordered a new, specialized one. Miami proceeded to lose five of its last six games and got bounced in the wild-card round.
What’s Really Wrong in Baltimore
Here’s what makes this whole situation almost sad: Baltimore’s problems are painfully obvious and have nothing to do with recreational equipment. They’re banged up—Jackson’s injury is just the tip of the iceberg. Their turnover margin is an ugly minus-seven, ranking 31st in the league. Jackson’s thrown five picks, the team’s fumbled five times, and they’ve only forced three turnovers total on defense.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Harbaugh
Harbaugh’s track record speaks for itself—he’s won a Super Bowl and posted just two losing seasons in 17 years. That’s elite coaching by any measure. But this reeks of desperation. This is what you do when you’re coaching high schoolers who need to “get their priorities straight,” not when you’re leading grown men.
Honestly, the more time progresses, the more the Ravens should have fired Harbaugh after that playoff game against the Bills. Especially after that Mark Andrews drop. You have King Henry, who is one of the best power backs in the NFL, and you don’t use him in the spot where he thrives. They lost that playoff game 100% due to coaching, and those are losses teams don’t recover from.
When Good Coaches Make Bad Moves
The irony is almost painful. Harbaugh is widely considered one of the best coaches in the NFL, but its time. Because here’s the reality: If you lose the locker room by treating professionals like children who can’t handle their responsibilities, no amount of past success will save you.
Baltimore fans showed up this season expecting Super Bowl contention. Instead, they’re watching their coach confiscate video games like some disappointed dad who just got a bad report card. The season’s already teetering on the edge of lost, and this kind of approach isn’t going to be the thing that saves it. Again, should have fired Harbaugh in January Baltimore.
